Because Army-Navy is better than Michigan-Ohio State, the Triple Option always trumps the Run and Shoot, and college football is most nearly itself when it's played by actual student athletes.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Monday Walkthrough

It's a big day over at CFN.com today, as the unit rankings are released. According to CFN, Navy has the 97th best Quarterback unit in America, the 80th best offense, the 110th best wide receiver corps in the nation, and the 70th best offensive line. Navy's running backs were named the 10th best unit in the nation, with the following blurb:

The backfield is loaded with speed and experience, but the real excitement is over fullback Adam Ballard who turned into a dangerous, explosive runner down the stretch. Trey Hines is fully healthy and should finally live up to his promise as one of the fastest backs in Navy history. Poinsettia Bowl star Reggie Campbell returns, as does fullback Matt Hall from a knee injury. Also look for this group to be great at catching the ball.

It's good to see some love from CFN towards the rushing game, but I can't help but feel that whoever ranked these units didn't take into account how Navy's personnel fits into Paul Johnson's scheme. This isn't a ranking of talent, this is a ranking of effectiveness. How can our wideouts be the 9th worse unit in the country when they clearly provide good outside blocking and make plays downfield when asked too? How can an offense that averages over 300 yards rushing and around 100 ypg passing be ranked 80th? One again, CFN has proved that you can't rank anything or everything, or at least that you can't rank them well.

Speaking of CFN, I was disappointed to see that not one Navy game made it in their Top 40 "Big Games" for this season. Haven’t they ever heard of Notre Dame-Navy?

I was not at last Saturday’s scrimmage (I was in Buffalo watching JP Losman’s erratic preseason start against the Bengals), but a full recap can be found here and hyah. Apparently the defense really tightened up, and it was encouraging to here some of the accounts of the defenses’ play, especially of Freshman DT Nate Frazier. Sounds like the Kaipo experiment (Num. 2) at wide receiver is working, although 2 dropped passes do concern me. Hopefully we’ll be ready in two weeks.

Now for some bad news, as it appears that Wide Receiver Kyle Kimbro, who was thought to be fighting for a starting spot, has decided to leave the program. Kimbro has left the Academy, according to Coach Johnson, to try to recover from off-season knee surgery. This is really unfortunate news, especially since Tyree Barnes hasn’t been able to practice because of off-season surgery. Let’s hope Barnes is ready for the 2nd, or that Curtis Sharp or one of these younger guys can step up.

I don't know if CFN keeps enough of a pulse on the little things to know that depth is an issue for us right now, especially considering they still think Karlos Whittaker is on the team. I think the greatest injustice on their rankings is Navy with the 80th best offense; it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

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